From Vegan Cheese to Kombucha DNA

Kombucha colony of yeast and bacteria growing in black tea by Kosovokelly, licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0 commons.wiki.org

At Oakland’s Counter Culture Labs, food-themed community science projects are currently happening online. Cheese enthusiasts can investigate the Real Vegan Cheese project for a chance to learn how scientists are making real cheese without any animal involvement. The process engineers baker’s yeast to become milk-protein factories. These proteins are combined with water and vegan oil to make vegan milk, and the milk is converted into vegan cheese through standard cheese-making processes. This group meets each Monday, 7-9pm. Free. Info: here

Fermented foods lovers can step into the Kombucha Genomics community project to learn how to isolate and identify a variety of bacterial and yeast strains from kombucha and other fermented foods. The work starts with basic culturing and progresses all the way through DNA barcoding, genome and microbiome sequencing, systems biology, synthetic biology, and more. The group meets every other Tuesday, 7-8 pm. Free. Info: here

Top photos courtesy of Counter Culture Labs.